TV

GCN

While we don’t cycle as much as we used to, we still like to watch the professionals do it. Every July since in the early 90’s we have watched the Tour de France on whatever network has shown it. Probably for the last decade or so we have subscribed to NBC Sports Gold, the most recent home of the Tour de France 3-week grand tour.

Along with the Tour de France NBC Sports Gold showed several other races as well, from a couple of spring classic one day events, to a couple of week long races like the Tour Down Under in Australia and Paris-Nice in France. We have also been able to watch the Vuelta a España, one of the three other 3-week grand tours.

The only 3-week grand tours we have never seen is the Giro d’Italia, well, that changes this year. Turns out that Global Cycling Network, something that started in 2013 as a YouTube channel, now carries the Italian grand tour. We have signed up for the month of May for GCN+ for a mere $9 just so we can see this grand tour. They also carry tons of other races from Europe, so maybe we just might sign up for a whole ($45) so we can get all sorts of commercial free cycling content.

18.5 mile trip to the Running Y for a 3 mile walk.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 18

 

I Suppose It Is the Fourth of February Already Somewhere

Earlier this evening I sat down in front of the PC, and because it is the day before the Reacher series premiers on Amazon, I might find a newer or different trailer out that I hadn’t seen yet. Well, there wasn’t any trailer, but the entire show was there waiting to be watched.

So I watched the first of the eight episodes. Watched it all the way through, even the credits. The lead actor fits the bill and I believe he is Reacher incarnate. From now on whenever I’m reading a Jack Reacher book I will picture Alan Ritchson in my head, just like I visualize Sam Heughan in any of the Outlander books.

This story is based on a book set in Georgia and the scenery looked the part, from the countryside to the small town square. I checked IMDB and the only filming locations mentioned are in Ontario, Canada. I guess it is a good thing they filmed it in the summer.

Also on the IMDB page there were several user reviews already there and they were dated February 4th even though it was early evening here. It wasn’t even past midnight on the east coast.

But then I remembered the credits I watched. I had noticed at the end of them the voice actors were listed for all the different countries that will be seeing this show. I realized, at least from the languages I recognized, many were in Europe and it was actually February 4th there.

Peacock, We Hardly Knew Ya

Earlier this month, somewhere, somehow, I found out there was an offer for a year free of Peacock Premium just for Specturm subscribers. So I signed up. Here is the welcoming email:
———
Thank you for signing up for Peacock Premium.

You now have access to thousands of hours of classic and current TV hits, movies, Peacock Originals, Dreamworks titles, live sports and more—included with your offer until 01/05/23 at no extra cost.

On 01/05/23, your access to Peacock Premium at no extra cost will end and you will be charged $4.99/month plus tax on a recurring basis unless you cancel before then. To cancel your Peacock Premium plan before you are charged on 01/05/23, please visit My Account.
———

We downloaded the Roku app, signed in, poked around a bit and then exited. Never went back. Then 2 days ago, 01/18/22, we got another email from Peacock:
———
Your Peacock offer has ended.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Peacock Premium at no extra cost. You no longer have access to Premium content but you can still watch Peacock for free. Restart Premium for only $4.99/month plus tax!
———

Wow, that year went by fast! Seemed like just 13 days.

Santa, All I Want For Christmas Is A New TV

Downstairs in Family/Entertainment Room we have our old 50″ Samsung TV that came with us from Aiken. Since its arrival from the east coast it has started to develop some vertical lines on the far left side of the screen. We have been able to ignore them mostly, but they are now starting to get on both our nerves.

It is Christmastime, so we thought maybe we should give ourselves a present of a new TV that has a nice complete picture. There are only a couple of places in town where you can buy a TV, but that is not really helpful as they would be no way to transport it home, so I went online to see about getting something delivered. Found a sweet Samsung 50″ UHD on Best Buy for $379. The best part is free shipping with arrival early next week. I was going to bump up the size to 55″ for $20 more, but the free shipping changed to $190!

I stuck the TV in my cart and headed to checkout. I filled out the requested personal info, entered my charge card info and hit the buy button. I got a screen telling me they couldn’t process my card and I should try another one. Thinking I may have entered the number wrong, entered a “new” card. Really the same one, but I made sure I double checked that everything was correct. This time when I hit Buy, I got a confirmation saying my order was placed.

About then I heard a couple of notification beeps on the phone. I figured it was Best Buy because I had signed up for order/delivery texts. I was right, there was one from Best Buy, but there was also one from Chase, the Fraud Department. They had declined the charge. They wanted to know if it was me. I responded with Yes. Chase sent back another text saying that the transaction was not completed and I should ask the merchant to reprocess the transaction.

On the Best Buy website, it showed the order as in process, so I tried contacting Chase. Instead of waiting for a representative on the phone, I tried their chat bot. After 7 minutes, I got started chatting with Doris Brown (who I’m sure was actually Prisha Banerjee) who after asking a couple questions to ensure I was really Brian Bogardus (not Changying Zhao) before asking what my issue was. Then she said give me a few minutes to look into this. Couple minutes she returned to tell me that I needed to contact billing to get them to reprocess a transaction and gave me that 800 number.

I dialed the number and navigated through the menu and then I was informed that billing was closed. Fast forward to this morning. I went to Best Buy’s website and my order was still showing in process. I went to the Chase website and the charge showed as pending.

So, is Santa bringing us a TV for Christmas, who knows. This morning I called Chase again. This time it only took a few minutes before I got a Customer Service Representative, and after a couple of questions was told that the transaction was actually approved and everything is fine. We’ll see.

She Looks Familiar

On Saturday when I finally gave up on watching Californication with mere minutes to go in the Season 5’s final episode. I once again tried on Hulu for something worth watching and received the same results (what is that quote about trying the same thing over and over again?) My best option now was to open up Plex and pick a movie I own digitally because if I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t have a copy of it. Ooh, here is one I love and haven’t watched in a while, Ronin. Foreign locales, international intrigue, gun fire and car chases.

Natascha McElhone in Ronin

Early on when the team of mercenaries is gathering a bar in Paris, in walks a woman who is going to be the leader their mission. Hey, she looks familiar. I’ve seen her in something I’ve watched recently.

Natascha McElhone in Californication

I hit pause and open up IMDB page for Ronin, dang, no wonder I thought I recognized her, she is the same actor who plays David Duchovny’s girlfriend/soul mate/baby mamma in Californication, Natascha McElhone.

Californication

I stumbled on this decade old Showtime series on Hulu and thought I’d check it out, solely on the merits of my favorite FBI guy, Agent Mulder. In this show Mr. Duchovny plays a writer named Hank, who tries unsuccessfully to balance his drinking, drug use and philandering ways with his on again off again relationship with his family which consists of a longtime girlfriend and their daughter. In traditional pay cable channel the show includes a lot of profanity, nudity and simulated sex acts.

The first season was pretty good fun, the second had an interesting story line weaved through it and season 3 had an absolutely filthy mouthed guest star turn from Kathleen Turner, but after 36 episodes I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch anymore. This Season 4 Episode 1 review on IMDB by user mtrodeomom pretty much summed up my feelings:

I’ve gagged my way through this series. The premise was somewhat intriguing and the first few episodes were watchable. But with the beginning of season four, I think I’m done. It’s obvious, the writers are only going for as much gratuitous nudity as they can shove into this show. The main character is disgusting. There aren’t any redeemable qualities in him. And frankly, I can’t understand why any woman would crawl into bed with him. He’s semi-famous. But he’s a washed up old writer. He isn’t that attractive, and he doesn’t offer these woman anything. He says he loves Karen and Becca, but he can’t keep his dick in his pants. So, his words are empty. Every time he’s with yet another woman, I want to throw up.

But I was sort of invested in the some of other characters, and hell, I’m still reading Dagwood on the funny pages long after they have have become cliches, so I watched season four, vowing to not go any further. As it turned out that that last show was intended to be the series ender, so it wrapped up all the story threads nicely and as a bonus was a very good episode.

So, you know what happened right? Yep I started watching season five. Why? See Dagwood line above. I got 3/4 of the way through the season yesterday afternoon and told Donna I was done watching for good now. After hunting around Hulu this afternoon looking to find something different I might watch, I caved and told myself I’d just finish the season out and quit. I didn’t make it, got close, but I shut off the season ending episode out with like 10 minutes to go. The twist at the end, in hindsight, was telegraphed throughout the episode, but it was just too much to watch. The initial screw-up in the show was not really Hank’s fault, but since then his bad decision making skills have been the root of all his troubles. Until this one, where it is his ex-New York girlfriend who slips him a Mickey Finn, that seemed to me too a cheap trick.

I’m running out of things to watch…

Tagged:

71% More Commercials

Last evening at 5:30, having already seen, and probably more than once, anything that was available on our go-to channels (HGTV, Food or Motortrend) we wandered over to TV Land to watch a couple of episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond. Troubling thing was we joined smack in the middle of a show. A quick peek at the electronic guide revealed that the episode started at 5:10 and would finish at 5:45. What the heck? The following show ran from 5:45 to 6:20. Next was 6:20 to 6:55, etc.

There was 35 minutes between episodes. I’m fairly sure there wasn’t an extra 5 minutes of unseen footage that could be added back to the original 23 minute prime time run. TV Land had found a way to add more commercial time to the syndicated shows, in addition to slightly speeding up the video of the show and running the credits at the bottom while the top is showing the beginning of the next episode. Five divided by seven equals 71% more commercial time they could sell.

Having exhausted all the British crime shows we could enjoy, I though maybe it was time to try a much heralded show from a decade ago, Sherlock. But it turns out we just couldn’t take Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance. He was like an over the top and unfunny, Sheldon Cooper. He spoke so fast (and quietly) at times we really couldn’t make out what he was saying. So we turned on the closed captioning to see if that would help. Nope, sometimes the dialog was even faster than it could be displayed on the screen.

With all the marathons of Law and Order running on WE and Sundance, we are now on the second viewing of their episodes. While we do enjoy revisiting this show every once in a while, we’d like the gap between re-watches to to be a lot longer than 30 days…

We are now on the home stretch of watching Cheers having started the 11th and final season on Monday. We are getting tired of the show and are ready to move on. The idea of canceling Netflix and moving to Hulu, so we can smoothly segue into Frasier after Cheers, is a good one. Not only would we save a buck a month, but we could also see another Thursday night NBC comedy of that era as well, Wings.