Saturday, March 19, 2016

Saturday encore ~ Putting the dishes away

Wow. It's been almost a year since I became a cord cutter and wrote this post.
I haven't missed "real TV" a stinkin' bit. 
Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime continue to provide me with all the shows I want to watch,
and I can get my news fix on the internet.

p.s. I still haven't repurposed the iron poles


Sayonara, DirecTV. You are dead to me. No longer will I pay your obscene and 
ever-increasing monthly bill for 150 channels, only 10 of which I ever watched. 
Take your dish and your crappy customer service and go out of business 
as more of us cut the cord and find other ways to watch TV. 
Whew. I feel so much better already.

I've subscribed to a satellite TV service ever since moving to the ranch. 
Back in 1995, it was the only way to get a signal out here in the middle of nowhere. 
Then DSL came to my house and I discovered the wonders of streaming video from the internet.
 Between Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime, I can watch almost everything I'm interested in 
and save a whole bunch of money every month.

I cancelled my service two weeks ago, when the contract finally expired, and haven't looked back. 
DirecTV shipped me a box in which to return all of their equipment except the satellite dish, 
which they didn't want. So I wrangled it off the pole and literally got to cut all the cords. 
I dismantled the internet satellite dish while I was at it, and the only evidence remaining of 
my 10-year affairs with DirecTV and Wildblue are a couple of iron poles cemented in the ground.

I can't imagine trying to dig out the poles. I wonder how I could repurpose them...
the world's shortest clothesline? Maybe I could hang a banner between them...







16 comments:

  1. What DID you end up doing with those poles?

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    1. They're still permanently planted right in the same spot. Funny how they keep falling to very bottom of my project list.

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    2. They should have cow skulls on them. Art Stands!

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    3. An American in Tokyo3/24/16, 6:03 PM

      Oooo, I agree! Use them to display your art!

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  2. Must have been a terrific feeling of freedom!

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  3. How about attaching some rakes to the poles to serve as butt scratchers?

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  4. Maybe we need to do some type of Canyon Road design on them...bones or some paint...
    Ethel

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    Replies
    1. I know where we can get a whole rib cage...use the pole as a spine?

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    2. Oh wow! A rib cage would look really good and nothing scares your chickens!

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    3. An American in Tokyo3/24/16, 6:03 PM

      Have you ever thought of staining or painting some bones?! I wonder what that would look like...

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  5. I hate Comcast and don't need it. I do subscribe to Amazon and Netflix which I pay for. Fortunately, some else in the house (husband) pays for a $200 a month Comcast bill (which also provides the necessary internet connection, an unecessary land line, and cable tv) which I consider a total wase of time and money. All we get on the landline are annoying non-stop spam and robo calls (they start as early as 7AM) and of the 800+ channels I also probably watch only 10. He likes his sports, his cable, network and local news and a handfull of network TV shows. So, we stay connected as the $$$$ flow to over-priced telecommunication companies.

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  6. Saw poles off at ground level and re-use as goal posts for playing soccer with the Burro Brothers? (I do like Eileen's and Ethel's ideas, though.)

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  7. Haha! Great timing! We "cut the cord" about 2 weeks ago in favor of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, CBS All Access, etc. Gave up the $107 bill for about $60 worth of services, and we get better tv service with no commercials. Win-win! :) Did you ever find a purpose for your old dishes?

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  8. We want to get rid of our cable TV/internet provider. How did you do it and keep your internet? Plus, if you want to watch shows in real time, how do you do so without cable TV?

    Thanks or your help.

    Linda D. in Tucson

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    1. I get my internet through my phone company, so dumping the satellite TV wasn't a problem. Some real time TV is live streamed (like breaking news) on the internet but otherwise most shows stream on a delay. So if you need to watch sports and such, cutting the cable might not be a good option.

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