Honker Pride!
I stayed with my daughter at her beautiful home on Arizona for a few weeks. It is always a pleasure to be in Arizona in the spring. It may look like a desert but during the spring its heaven. The desert flowers come to life, the golf courses are carpeted in an eye-popping green against a sea of brown and my goodness, the Oleanders, especially the red ones are so vibrant they almost look fake. But desert landscaping is not what this post is about, this post is about cutting the cord.
You see, there is no cable tv in her house and after a few days of serious withdrawals I slowly come out of my cinematic fog and realize that I have no idea what day it is or what time it is. It seems that the structure of my day, week, and month is centered around standard programming. I have not been able to watch Moonshiners or Blue Bloods, two of my favorite shows. One show is about cops and the other is about staying away from cops. I’m very balanced in my choices.
It is my understanding that when you cut the cable cord and are fully detoxed from being programmed, you find that there is an ocean of entertainment at your fingertips in the form of Apple TV, Netflix, YouTube & Amazon Prime just to name a few. You can watch most of these channels for free but if you buy a membership, you don’t have to watch commercials.
I don’t mind commercials as long as they are good. I’ve previously written about the value of a good catchy jingle but lately I’ve noticed that commercials are just bad or confusing. For example; an Emu running around in aviator sunglasses has never once enticed me to buy anything and I honestly haven’t figured out what they are selling. I have had some seriously traumatic experiences with ostriches so I consider Emu’s as being too close to the Ostrich family and for that reason, the commercial is a no go. Having to fight off an Ostrich as it tried to consume the entire cup of food they gave me at the drive through animal park is something I will never forget or forgive. To me, it was a scene right out of Jurassic park when the animals got loose. The Ostrich somehow morphed into a Velociraptor and if it hadn’t been for my heroic action of rolling up the window, things could have gotten ugly. Anyway- back to cord cutting.
There is so much entertainment content available that it can be overwhelming. I know I am loosely using the word entertainment when I describe the cornucopia of available programing at the tips of your cable and cable free fingers. Unfortunately, some of the stuff is pretty bad and I am burdened with the personality that won’t allow me to give up on a bad movie. So, when I have spent an hour scanning through all of the movies and shows available, watching every trailer and reading the descriptions, and then…I invest two hours of my life into a film on Netflix, I seriously end up wishing I could take back those 3 hours and pretend I didn’t choose it or see it, but I can’t.
My daughter got me semi-hooked on a show called “Botched”. This is a fascinating show because humility is thrown completely out the window. The show highlights folks that have had some serious plastic surgery errors in their past and have finally decided to repair the error and revisit their mistakes in front of a camera so that everyone knows and see’s their issues.
Most of the problems center around boobs and noses for men and women that either went to a bad doctor in the states or decided to sign up for the “special” in Tijuana. I sympathize (sometimes) with the patients from bad doctors. Many just felt the need to more clearly emphasize their bosom’s which I support, and many just want to deemphasize their honker which I also support. on the other hand, a 2 for the price of 1 boob job in Tijuana…you get what you pay for…
It’s oddly entertaining as I watched the process from beginning to end and mildly amusing that when they show the fellas bare chested, they don’t blur out (pixelate) their nipples but when they show the ladies bare chested… absolutely NOT. It’s confusing for me but I guess I understand the modesty but as far as I know, that particular anatomical appendage is quite similar on both men and women. And now that men can swim on women’s college teams, I believe that it is time to remove the pixelated modesty. However, I understand that the idea of the show is to illustrate the correction of a wrong and the ability to make something right, not to enhance the viewing demographics of their “12-16-year-old male audience”.
I am back home now and it only took me a few minutes to get back on directTV schedule that provides a handy “guide”. The task of choosing something from Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV, Sling, and Amazon Prime was very daunting. I feel I am slightly more relaxed now that I can use the “guide” proved by DirectTV and peruse through all 500 channels with the speed of Mercury before proclaiming that… “there is nothing on”. I can’t even find my new favorite show “Botched”. Bummer.