TagTV

Cable Without Cable

I figured out a killer way to save on cord cutting. Philo costs $20/mo and offers “basic cable,” a service that Sling provides for $35 (though bit more conveniently – at least on my TV). Neither offer local channels, but if you live in a very few service areas, LoCast is an alternative which asks for donations ($5/mo). It has apps for AppleTV, Roku, Amazon and can be Chromecasted.

If you happen to be with T-Mobile, they’re offering a $10/mo rebate on Philo until the end of April. For a more complete/simpler solution, Youtube TV is great and can be locked in for $55/mo (if you’re with T-Mobile).

Weighty Issues

I went to the gym today and was surprised at the scale. My highest some years ago in the US was about 75kg and since then I’ve been constantly saying my goal was to get to 60. Well, as of this afternoon I’m 59.13kg! That apparently puts me at 20.4 on that BMI thing. The fat’s still there so it must be bone and muscle loss. 8(. As a side note for some strange reason every time I go there I get home and notice several ~3 inch long red scarish things on the top of my shoulders right where a shirt seam is (they do go away after a day or so). I’ve tried different shirts and none of them are abrasive in any way yet it happens all the time. I can’t figure it out.

Anyway to try and replace the fat with the muscle and stay at 60ish kg I’m now testing alternatives to coke. It goes suchly:

Coke: Simply perfect. Actually refreshing and uplifting as it says on the bottle. The taste swings incredibly widely from country to country, but Japan has done this one to my taste.
Pepsi Nex: It’s not disgusting. Just dry and not particularly refreshing. It has this very very weird aftertaste like they dumped some of that fake lemon juice in the little plastic thing shaped like a lemon into it.
Coke Zero: This is the last hope. Well, it’s a fairly good rendition of coke (in fact it tastes like coke does in some countries). The obvious lack of sweetness takes away from the refreshing and upliftingness of it, but I guess this will have to do.

Actually I usually drink Mitsuya Cider (the apple kind is pretty brilliant) or CC Lemon but those are probably as bad as Coke despite the CC promise of 250 lemons of vitamin C in every bottle. Sigh.

I suppose I should drink water only, but … urgh. There is Vitamin Water and now Protein Water.

One other thing that’s weighty is US TV lately. From 24 to CSI Miami to NCIS to Bones to … this was the shocker … Num3ers. You get to the end of that episode expecting the ever present laughter or luvey ending and drift off only to be startled by a loud crack and something unthinkable. I hope this is ratings season or something and they are not going to have cliff hangers until next year bull. By then I just won’t care. Another … Sigh? Well, at least I do care about the new season of QI “G” they started filming this week. Stephen Fry mentioned that they have an ultra exciting guest on (I’m a faithful follower on twitter).