TV or Not TV?

Due to recent purges, I've had an interesting change in my television viewing habits. It's not an entirely bad thing though. 

I have to admit that YouTube TV was the best service that I've come across. It's expensive though (currently $82.50 a month) and I did not like their shitty cancelling non-feature. Won't go through all that again but suffice to say it was way too Brokeback Mountain. Very hard to quit. It really had everything I wanted though. The NFL, NHL, some MLB and the network channels which seem useless, but come in handy at times. I was thinking about this when I read how pissed off Survivor fans were that Trump's crazy national address interrupted the season finale. I wasn't a serious fan, but I looked at Survivor as comfort food for the mind. Same thing every damn season, so predictable and safe, like a ham sandwich for the soul. It was there if I wanted it.

Once I discovered how fucking hard they made it to quit, I was very dedicated to defeating them. I had to get a new debit card with my bank to make them stop, you may recall. So much for "Cancel Anytime!" 

Week before last I got an inexpensive cable plan added to my Xfinity internet. The Chicago Bears are having a surprisingly good season, and I thought I'd get in on that. For $20 bucks per month, it looked like I'd get Fox Sports and Fox 32 in Chicago. I found out that Sunday that, yeah, I got those, but no football. That's on Fox One and when I downloaded that app, I learned I would have to upgrade my Xfinity package. Blow me. And ya know, it was the same stupid story with the CBS sports app. Everything is a fucking app. I couldn't even get the networks! This package was called "NOW" but it seemed like non-basic cable. I could stream movies, but none were ad-free, and many were to rent/buy like Prime does. Blow me again. I want to spend LESS on TV, not MORE! Oh- the fuckers had also thrown in the Peacock Network for free! Then when I signed on, it was "now $7.99 a month". In pre-Trumpian times that was called "bait & switch", and it was not legal. Look for Trump's Supreme Court to rule that, like cops, corporations are allowed to lie to you in the process of screwing you. 

So, I gave up on Xfinity and set about cancelling. That was on the weekend, and they told me they'd call on the following Tuesday to end the service. Weird. I figured some slick talker salesman would try to upsell me a better package. To my amazement, they did call on time, and they called THREE times, but I couldn't get past the robocall each of those times. You had to press 1 or 2 on the keyboard to talk to a live agent. OK, but suddenly, the keyboard on my phone wasn't keying! WTF? It always worked before and it has worked since, but not that day. I had to believe it was their take on YouTube's cancel button to nowhere. A couple days later, a chatbot gave me a number to call and, in calling that, I think I got a live person to talk to. I'm not sure. She was Hindu, but I'm not so sure she was real. I told her my name was Pete (I'm only Ferrerman on the internets) and she called me "Sir Peter". I told her that made me sound like British Royalty which I'm not and is never a good thing to be. Nevertheless, she persisted. 

So, evidently, I successfully quit. According to her it would be immediate and reflected as a credit on my next bill. Well, we'll see about that, as I still have the cable. 

I wish TV wasn't so fucking complicated. I come from a long line of TV people. Got sisters who stream everything. I hardly have turned it on this past week. I've seen a few good movies "The Departed" and "Zulu", both I think were on Pluto TV (which is a free app) but I no longer have the tv on just to have it on for the background noise. Perhaps when you aren't paying an arm and a leg you don't feel the need to get your eyeballs so involved. 🤷 I've only golfed once in the past 3 or so weeks! I might be growing up. Maybe? Nah- blow me!