Cable and Sattelite TV

The only reason I have cable t.v. is because I have cable internet.  See, if I just had the internet it would cost me the same amount of money as having the internet and the very basic cable package.   If it weren't for that, we would not have cable.   I'm cheap. I'm also making a statement.  I don't watch a lot of t.v. and most of the stuff I do want to watch I can get over the air, stream live on the internet, or rent on Netflix.   Satellite isn't any cheaper than cable so it's not really an option for me either.

I see these "deals" all the time for both cable and satellite that make me think about upgrading.  The problem is that they are not really deals.   I received a "deal" for DishNetwork in the Valpak coupons I get in the mail.  This "deal" is $24.99 for 12* months.   I could get 120 channels including locals, free* HD for life, Free* 2-room HD DVR receiver, Free HBO and Showtime (for three months with activation*), and Free* activation.

Do you see all those little asterisks?  Yeah, I thought so.   First of all you have to sign a 24 month agreement for all of those "free" things.  They don't tell you what the price is after the first year.  I called and asked.  The response I got was it depends on what package I choose, how many tv's I have, and whether or not I even qualify for the deal in the first place.    Secondly, you have to give them your social security number and have a valid major credit card.   HD programming requires an HD t.v.  Now, most people would realize this, but unfortunately there are some people out there that don't.   They will give you the DVR for free, but if you want to be able to use it you have to pay a $6.00 monthly fee.  You will also have to agree to autopay and paperless billing.  Wow!  That doesn't sound like such a good deal anymore.

I went to the DishNetwork website to see if I could figure out how much it would cost me after a year.  I looked at the different packages and channel lineups.  You know what I realized?  I don't want half those channels anyway.  I always complain about the same thing with cable t.v.  Who wants to watch this stuff?

I've come up with a great idea to solve this problem.  Instead of these companies giving you a list of channels you don't want to watch and telling you how much it's going to cost, they should allow you to pick and choose.  I wouldn't mind paying for cable if I knew I was going to get 60 channels I actually wanted to see.   I would be happy with only picking 10 channels.  

I'm sure it's possible for companies to do this.  But, why would they?  So many people out there pay the astronomical prices for the services offered now.  People think they "have" to have a million channels so cable and satellite  so they pay the prices and complain about it. 

Over the river and through the wooods

We went hiking yesterday in the Pine Moutain area of Georgia. We were on one of the trails at FDR State Park. We walked about 3 miles total. It took us 2.5 hours to do. I was totally expecting my legs to be sore today. But, last night my abs started to hurt. They are so sore today it seriously hurts to be upright or turn from side to side.


I really wanted to be able to tell you about this trail we walked on, but thought I couldn't do it justice on my own. So, I took some pictures to show you all what kind of hiking we did.


First there were these handsome boys following me around :D

There were some REALLY cool looking trees

There was this really cool cave

A little waterfall

There was even a waterfall over a cave

The scenery truly was beautiful, but the part I wanted to share was the conditions of the trail itself. This is the only you'll be able to understand why it took us 2.5 hours to walk three miles.

The trail was covered in rocks that you had to step on, over, and around. I'm not talking about little pebbles either

Then there were a ton of tree roots in the path

and even bigger tree roots

There was even a tree we had to walk through. The tree fell over the path and some one cut out a step.

This trail wasn't just a nice straight flat trail either. It was curvy, up hill and down hill. A lot of times there were even tree roots and rocks together, but I don't have a picture of any of that.

There were muddle puddles we had to try and walk around

and to top it all off there was a stream winding around with the path. There were about six places we had to cross the stream to keep going. Unfortunately there weren't any bridges at these parts. Fortunately there were a few rocks big enough to step on to get across. The stream doesn't really look like much in this picture, but it was about 3 feet wide.

Exercise Schmexercise...

So I decided to give the whole exercise thing a try. Thursday I sat around for three hours *thinking* about exercising and then finally I gave in. I did the arms and the legs sessions on my 10 minutes pilates dvd for a total of 20 minutes. Then I took a 2 hour nap.

Friday Matt forced me to go to the gym at our apt. complex. I went and did 20 minutes on the Arc Trainer and some two upper body machines. Friday night I was ready to go back to the gym. Yesterday I was going to be lazy and not work out at all, but decided about halfway through the day to do it anyway. I did 20 minutes again on the Arc Trainer. Last night I had so much energy I was washing dishes by hand. Now, normally I won't even use the dish washer let alone by hand. Matt came back from the store and saw me doing that and wondered what in the heck was wrong with me. Today I was full of energy again. I,again, was not going to work out today, but ended up walking 30 minutes on uneven terrain up and down hills through the woods at Eddie's horseback riding lesson.

I really need to to some ab exercises because that is where the bulk of my weight is. I really like that Arc Trainer. It's kind of like an eliptical machine, but doesn't have the arm movements. The first time I used it my thighs burned so bad I thought I was going to die. The second time they didn't start burning until I was about 3/4 done. So hopefully the more I use it the easier it will be on my thighs.

I will definitely keep up this exercising gig though if I keep this energy level up. Now I just need to start eating better and cut that darned pop out.

The Drug Crazed 60s and 70s

If you don't already know, I am a huge fan of cookbooks.  I especially like old cookbooks.  I have a large collection of Betty Crocker and Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks from the late 1960s and early 1970s.  I am in the mood to clean out old clutter.  As a result, I thought perhaps I should pare down my cookbook collection.  I've been looking through some of them tonight which inspired this post.   I have written in the past about the horrors of the Jello cookbook.  Let me tell you Better Homes and Gardens really didn't do much better.  I truly believe the recipes in these cookbooks were the inspiration of a cook on acid.   I mean, do you want to have Golden Nugget Meat Pie for dinner tomorrow night?  I know I sure don't.  I didn't even look at the ingredients.  The name alone was enough to scare me away.  I have a JC Penney catalog from 1972 so I know for a fact that clothes designers were on acid.  Now I'm convinced that the cooks in test kitchens were too.  They had to be on some kind of drugs. 

I leave you with an example of a tasty 1967 treat from the Better Homes and Gardens Jiffy Cooking:

Deviled Ham Pie rates high as a luncheon dish.  Deviled ham is surrounded with pastry, then topped with asparagus spears.  Prepare easy cheese sauce from canned soup.   Yum.  I know I can't wait to try it.

So basically you put a pie crust in a pan, spread one 4 1/2 oz can of deviled ham on the bottom, top the ham with a 3oz can of mushrooms, then put another pie crust on top of the whole thing.  Bake for 15 minutes.   In the mean time heat up a 10oz package of frozen asparagus.  Also heat one 11oz can of cheddar cheese soup and 1/4 cup milk.   Arrange the asparagus in a spoke fashion on top of the pie and then cover with the cheese sauce.

Wii Sports Resort

"Santa" brought Wii Sports Resort to our house this Christmas. I just have to say I absolutely LOVE this game. It brings our whole family together when even just one person is playing. We have nice healthy competitions with each other too. I like that it gets the boys active instead of just staring at a screen like their DS's do. They get so into the games on Sports Resort they're jumping around all over the place. There are a couple of games where you really don't have to get up and do anything, but most of them get you moving even if it is just a little bit.


If you're looking for a fun family game to play I highly recommend this one!