Cord Cutting

A cable sales rep called the other day offering me a deal on service.

"Do you have cable now?"

"No. I go with over-the-air. I get HD plus a lot of local digital channels that weren't on basic Prism from CenturyLink."

I use a Mohu Leaf, and I'm fortunate to live in a good location--major networks plus Decades, Heroes and Icons, Me TV, My TV, Cozi, Bounce Laff, Escape, Univision, Telemundo, Get, Antenna, this, Retro, Grit, Escape, QVC, ION, NASA, PBS, Create.

I really don't want for stuff not to watch. There are as many things to flip past as I ever had. Sometimes the weather affects reception, but then that happened back when I had Dish TV.

"But, do you have a way to record programs?"

"Yeah I have an over-the-air DVR."  It's a Tablo. It's fabulous and plays through Apple TV,  an Amazon Fire Stick or on a tablet if I ever need television, say, in the laundry room.

I have to wait for a few cable programs to show up on streaming services, but otherwise I do OK.

I guess a DVR was the best arrow in the quiver. The sales rep and I said our goodbyes.

I suppose all this might be affected by loss of net neutrality if it comes to that, but at the moment I'm not missing cable about one year out. I've built my own à la carte and the wheels don't even wobble.

At the moment, I'm streaming musical performances from Pluto TV's Live Music channel via Apple TV. You don't even get that on MTV anymore do you?

Upgrading to the new version of Apple TV's one of the best moves I've made since cutting the cord. It allows providers to offer their own apps, making it a little less of a closed environment than Apple TV used to be.

I've found a pretty good set of alternatives even for surfing mindlessly.  Pluto's one of the best. There's a lot to be said for MST3K any time. 
Besides that, the news junkie in me is fed by a variety of sources, some on Pluto TV like the new Chedder--CNBC for Millennials but I like it too--and others. CBSN is available on just about every device, and I supplement it with UK's Sky News feed and a few others plus podcasts of the Rachael Maddow show, a day late, but still handy.

And there are free streaming services beyond Netflix and Hulu. Shout Factory, Tubi TV, Popcorn TV, Crackle they have a few commercials and a lot of niche selections the premium services aren't bothering with.

 As I said, way, way more than I need, but it's not the having, it's the getting for the geek in me.

Lost: Via Domus

Someone got to say it first on at least one message board, but it's a good point. Lost Via Domus, the Ubisoft video game based on the series is a little like the whole Nikki and Paulo story arc.

Like the series of Lost paperbacks, the Exposé episode and those immediately preceding it in Season 3, Via Domus introduces a new character aboard Oceanic Flight 815 who's quickly off on his own adventure, wending his way through the island's familiar landmarks, interaction with the main characters and his own cryptic flashbacks.

That new character is you as you play first person non-shooter, and fairly quickly you discover you're an amnesiac photojournalist with at least one thug on your tail. Your objective is to unlock your memories about a girl who periodically appears Christian Shepherd like--or Kate's horse-like--in the jungle and in your memories.

I didn't think I'd really like the non-canonical story, but for me, it all works pretty well and it has some definite pluses.

Story pace
What is it like, 100 days we've had spread out over 3 1/2 seasons? Much of the familiar plot line material is playing out around you in the game. You're busy wandering in caves or the jungle while the first encounters with the Others are taking place, explosives are being acquired from the Black Rock, the hatch is being opened and Sawyer, Jin and Michael are taking off on a raft.

That peripheral exposure while you're being sent on mystical vision quests by Locke and getting shot at in the jungle, really gives you a feel for how fast everything is supposed to have transpired.

In the midst of your quest, you also have to take a tour of the Swan hatch, a great walkthrough experience because it lets you see how everything's laid out from the computer room where you have to enter the numbers at least once to the kitchen and living quarters. You get to browse the books but not the album collection, but you can't have everything. There are only so many megabytes available, right? (The authenticity of the game with some cool in-game clips is disccused in this IGN video featuring the developers.)



The #$%@&*^%* Spots
I've found two #$%@&*^%* portions of the game so far and I think I'm just past the midsection. A lot of players discussing Via Domus in forums seem to agree with me.

There are the #$%@&*^%* electrical panels in which you have to modify fuses to either reverse electrical flow or disperse it appropriately. I don't know what should be inferred from the fact that Oceanic Flight 815 and the hatch utilize the same basic panels. I solved a couple but went to a walk through for the others because trial-and-erroring fuses had a dangerous level of stop-me-from-playing potential.

The other portion that's a little frustrating is an area where the difficulty is achieved by repeated incursions of the #$%@&*^%* smoke monster. Enough! you want to say after a while.

Still and all for me if not for the Doom generation, Lost: Via Domus is a cool adventure and puzzle game and it's a fun if not required experience for the Lost fan. Hopefully it will tide me over until the return of this season.

Maybe by April 24 I will have managed to get past the #$%@&*^%* smoke monster.

Who's still writing to those Q&A Columns?

It's probably one of the tragedies of our electronic age that the art of letter writing is becoming antiquated, ushered toward extinction by terms like snail mail. Who wants to wait days for a missive to reach its destination when a message can be there in seconds?

That is a shame, but I'm a bit perplexed when I pick up magazines and see people are still writing in to letters columns to get bits of trivia resolved.

"Who was that guy that played the cousin of Charlie Sheen's girlfriend on the April 25 episode of..."

Pardon the pseudo-expletive but how frakin' dim are these people? Have they never heard of imdb.com? I mean you can even build their search into Firefox's address bar. You don't have to write a letter to Matt at TV Guide and wait weeks for a half-assed answer.

This week's "Ask Matt" really prompted this. Someone asks if Rick Schroder didn't play Jack Bauer's daughter's boyfriend in Season 2 of 24.

No, Rick Schroder's role as an asshole on this season of 24 is his first on the show, TV Guide answers: You, gentle reader--I'm paraphrasing--must be thinking of James Badge Dale who played Kim's boyfriend in season 2.

Actually, this is just a supposition, but I bet the reader was confusing seasons as well as former child stars. See I watch 24 just like I watch Lost--they're the only two I watch "live" unless Christine is in a mood for House--and I happen to know that C. Thomas Howell played Jack's daughter's boyfriend in a guest shot last season.

Don't you think that's something someone's a little more likely to confuse, Ponyboy vs. the kid from Silver Spoons?

I could be wrong, but you'd think TV Guide could have thrown that in.