Earlier this month, we ordered cable for the house. We've been cable-less for years now, and haven't really missed it, but the reason we decided to get the hook up now was because the digital conversion has made it more or less a necessity. See, when we moved to the new house, channel 8 (CBS) would not pick up the signal. And since it's digital, it just wasn't there. Unlike analog, where you would get some signal, but it would just be fuzzy.
And since channel 8 houses Survivor...there was just no way we'd be going without that.
So.
We now have the 50ish channels that the extended basic package provides.
And while I have previously done a channel surfing blog entry, that was done at work. This time, I wanted to get a sampling of the stuff that's on at my own house. So. Yesterday, March 30th, 2010, I sat down and started on channel 2 and worked my way up through all the channels to see what exactly it is we're paying for.
Here we go!
All of these were from 3/30/10 5:00pm - 5:22pm:
2 - KCLV - a woman playing a cello. I'm still not sure what this channel *is*, exactly, except that we never watch it.
3 - KVBC - the NBC affiliate - their 5pm news was on, and they were talking about the extremely windy weather. (Gusts up to 50mph)
4 - CCTV - a Clark County Commission hearing wherein a woman was talking about Mountain's Edge and home owners associations.
5 - KVVU - Fox 5 - their 5pm news was advising people not to drive in the wind...
6 - KVCW - Dr. Oz was talking about how anthrax can kill you. Um. Huh. That seems rather ...belated. Weren't all the major the anthrax scares, like, 8 or 9 years ago? (I'm fully aware that I might not have heard about a recent news story relating to this.)
7 - TBS - a King of Queens episode
8 - KLAS - the CBS affiliate - newswoman talking about how allergy season is particularly bad, and especially because of the extremely windy weather!
9 - Spanish - a soldier in camouflage holding flowers, walking down a runway
10 - KLVX - Vegas PBS station - The new Electric Company opening credits. Aaaaah!!!
11- QVC - golden earrings
12 - KVMY - George Lopez show opening credits. "Low. Ri. Der. is a little higher."
13 - KTNV - ABC affiliate - news story about an 80 year old woman who can't get ID from the DMV due to not having the appropriate paper work. Yay, bureaucracy!
14 - KTUD - independent station - but is simulcasting channel 3's news. They're talking about an officer being injured in a motorcycle accident.
15 - Spanish news...just some guy talking. (Can't understand, just what does he say?)
16 - WGN - I think this was Angela's Ashes. It was a scene with a couple of young boys, and there was an Irish narrator, and it looked dark. I've not seen Angela's Ashes, but it seems like this could be it.
17 - Home Shopping Network - selling a pilates workout machine
18 - TNT _ Law & Order episode, a doctor is telling the officers that a woman is in a coma. Oh, and she's pregnant. (The woman in the coma. Not the doctor or the officers.)
19 - Black. This channel has always been just a black screen. I have no idea what it's supposed to be, but it ain't very compelling.
20 - CNN - some talking head mentions that there might be American Militia Terror plots brewing.
21 - Fox News - Bill O'Reilly show, where Laura Ingraham is talking about...Militia Terror plots! (Dude. CNN and Fox News talking about the same thing? Has something semi-important happened I'm not aware of? Let's switch the channel and see.)
22 - Headline News - Sandra Bullock is filing for divorce. (Phew!! *that's* the America I know and love.)
23 - Nickelodeon - Spongebob Squarepants - Spongebob has painted Squidwart's apartment blue. (Oh, and Nickelodeon has 2 shows. Spongebob Squarepants, and iCarly. It's ALWAYS one or the other.)
24 - FX - One of the Underworld movies.
25 - Discovery channel - a StarKist tuna commercial.
26 - Lifetime - an episode of Desperate Housewives
27 - BET - an episode of Everybody Hates Chris
28 - Disney channel - an episode of the animated show Phineas and Ferb. I think.
29 - a Just for Men beard commercial.
30 - some basketball game. The score is Florida St - 30, UConn - 47
31 - NIT (Which, I guess is also some sort of basketball?)...Wow. I should've taken better notes on this channel.
32 - commercial for Claritin D
33 - commercial for the Alvin & the Chipmunks "squeakel"
34 - USA - Law & Order episode
35 - CNBC - Bill Gates is talking about the economy and the real estate market.
36 - commercial for DSW, with talking shoes.
37 - a Sprint commercial
38 - a hockey game. The score is CHI - 0; STL - 0
39 - VH1 - one of those "I love the [whatever]" shows, where they get a bunch of unknown, unfunny comedians to talk about topics. Right now they're talking about Seth Rogen, and how he's always the same character in all his movies.
40 - Turner Classic Movies - 3 guys around a campfire, talking in Korean.
41 - TV Land - Bewitched episode
42 - Food Network - onions being dumped into a skillet. Mmm. Brings tears to my eyes.
43 - History Channel - dinosaurs! We watched (part of ) this show earlier in the week. It's about what really killed the dinos, and this particular section was discussing parasites/insects. Dude. Bugs suck.
44 - the weather channel - some guy talking on Skype. About...wind?
45 - a commercial for Orkin. It's the one where the giant ant is driving a car. Creepy.
46 - a Glen Lerner commercial. ("Glen Lerner is the one to call. Call 877-1500." [sigh])
47 - Kevin Olberman. That's all I wrote down.
48 - an infomercial. Again, that's all I wrote down.
49 - another hockey game. Where again, the score is tied at zero. ("Who's winning?") The teams were LA and NSH.
50 - A basketball game. LAC is at 7, while MIL is at 8. ...Which seem pretty low for basketball scores. But, hey, that's what I saw.
51 - a commercial for something called "auto relief group".
52 - AMC is showing a Clint Eastwood movie.
53 - Kathy Najimy...talking on a telephone about cooking.
54 - a funniest videos show
55 - a commercial for Le Cordon Blue cooking schools
56 - an episode of Married with Children.
57 - a woman smoking a cigarette
58 - a Wal-mart commercial.
59 - a commercial for DentalVille (a local dentist office)
60 - Discovery Health. a doctor taking x-rays. Yup. That's health for ya.
61 - Spanish channel - selling a watch
62 - Spanish channel - a man talking
63 - Spanish weather
64 - Spanish court show
65 -cartoon network... I don't recognize the cartoon though.
66 - the travel channel is talking about the Mall of America and all it's wondrous glory
67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73 and 74 are all just blue screens.
Then jumps to 96, which is also a blue screen.
Now, overall, this doesn't really seem like it's worth paying for, but we've been pretty happy with our new viewing capabilities. We get to see Mythbusters (tonight! New episode!), and Breaking Bad (I'm into it, Steph and the girls, not so much. And I haven't watched all of the previous seasons, but before season 3 started, AMC did a marathon of some of the best eps, and I caught a good 4 or 5 of them, so I've been watching season 3 and liking it.), and Cash Cab (Harper likes this show, and so do I), and iCarly (it's dumb, but we like it anyway) and the Food Network and the Daily Show.
Now, all that probably isn't worth the 50 dollars a month it costs us, and we'll probably cut it down to just basic service (channels 2 - 17) very soon, but in the meantime, we'll go with it.
3 comments:
Breaking Bad is the best thing on television. Caballos Sin Nombre was awesome.
#18 - I swear I was flipping channels a couple weeks ago and saw a bit of that exact same episode.
#40 - How did you know it was Korean?
Anyway, cable gets us all in the end. You held out longer than me, which makes you Veronica Cartwright to my Donald Sutherland, I guess.
-Kirk
1. You have Discovery Health! Next times Mystery Diagnosis is on, you should watch it. It's horrifyingly enthralling.
2. Angela's Ashes was on one of those similar channels here recently, so I would bet money that's what it was.
3. As I may or may not have mentioned, we recently got FiOS. I have so many channels now, I don't even know what to do about it. And that's still without any premium channels.
Kirk - the subtitles actually had one of the men ask, "Are you Korean?", so I just assumed that's what language they were speaking. It could've been just about anything, though.
And I'm enjoying Breaking Bad, but I do wish that it came on earlier. 10pm is pretty late for an old man like me (and we don't have a recording device, so I have to watch it live if I want to see it.)
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