Reasons to fish

Reasons to fish, you know, other than catching fish, which I rarely actually do.

Who needs cable?

So chalk up one point for who needs cable with the website Hulu.com. All the content you crave? No, but a lot of content and free.

In the heat of college football season and no TV!

So we didn't really ask the boy but my wife and I agreed to give up cable. We had a package that included about 6 million channels, our house phone, and digital internet through our local cable company. Very luxurious, hi-def, VS Sports, Speed Channel, our bill was also about $175 per month. When recently looking for ways to save many we came up with the radical (and possibly communist) idea of getting rid of cable. While I am slightly concerned that by eliminating cable I will miss the opportunity to see the latest products to purchase and I will be letting down the economy by eliminating the house phone and cable we will save about $120 per month ($1,440 per year).

So the gentlemen came on Wednesday and removed the box and frankly I didn't really miss TV until Saturday. I am a huge college football fan. I improvised but it isn't quite the same. Both Yahoo and ESPN have game center type features where you can find live scoring and updates (I am sure there are many others as well) and with a little effort there are many free radio stations available on the internet. I discovered googling team name, football, radio was pretty effective. I tried several different teams and was able to get a free live radio feed on all. Nebraska made me sign up for something (also free but tedious) but again I googled "Nebraska football radio" and spent about ten minutes signing up and I was in. I also discovered that Nebraska has an all online MBA program, but calculus is a prerequisite. Seriously, where are all these business people using calculus? I must be really low on the food chain because the subject is never even mentioned at my level. I am actually more intrigued with this which I also found last night.

A sloppy 17-3 win over South Dakota State ensued. In making our decision I really thought about it and half the time I don't really watch the games anyway, I mostly listen and half pay attention anyway. For $120 a month I'll improvise.

Five movies where you got more than you paid for.

So after dogging Tom Cruise for the movie Legend it got me reading and ultimately I was thinking about the film Born on the Fourth of July. Which leads me to this week’s Motion Picture Monday. Sometimes you really do get more than you paid for.

Born on the Fourth of July. The gut wrenching autobiographical tale of Ron Kovic tears at your heart on several levels, perhaps more so for veterans who understand that not all conflict is overseas.

The Perfect Storm. Really, how much acting did you expect from a movie starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, an actor whose biggest claim to fame is not something I’ll explain here (you can look it up)? This movie got the most out of everyone involved and tells the mesmerizing yet deeply personal story of commercial fishing in New England.

Rocky. Nominated for ten Academy Awards and winner for Best Picture, 1976 call it a dumb sports movie if you want to. Rocky is a quintessential tale of determination and perseverance, if you ever feel like an underdog watch this film.

Good Will Hunting. I’m partial to New England, I am amazed by people who can do complex math, and I have a soft spot in my heart for janitors who accomplish something (it’s a long story but the two people who read this will understand).

The Great Outdoors. I could make a list of fifty great comedies that came from the 80’s. Is it me or were movies funnier then? John Candy, Dan Akroyd and irreverent raccoons are a combination I could watch a thousand times, where’s a sequel when you need one?

Family Friday

So not a lot of posts lately but I have four days left of school so I keep thinking in theory I will have more free time then. In a "circle of life" sort of way the boy also started preschool last week. He seems to be doing quite well with it, I got him playing some pre-school games in early August to ease the trepidation and that seemed to help a little. On the down side he seems to have developed a completely random stuttering problem in the last two weeks and my wife and I can't completely decide if it's an act or some sort of bizarre developmental snag, bear in mind he spoke perfectly clearly two weeks ago?

We have also developed our first legitimate mutual interest, sorry Little Einsteins, it was always an act for me. The boy and I both really get a kick out of comic books, so last night we read digital comic books online for a couple of hours. He's really starting to turn into quite an entertaining little boy.