The 411 From 406 » hbo

The Windstream / DISH Saga

Chewie — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:01:24 +0000

I don’t know about you, but we don’t enjoy spending more money than we need to. Recently (after yet another rate increase notice – the 2nd this year) we finally got fed up with Time Warner and decided to make a switch. We were paying around $150 a month for our cable and Internet service through Time Warner… and that’s without any premium channels (HBO, Cinemax, etc.) Oh yeah, throw in another $15 a month for Vonage and we’re talking well over $175 a month for hundreds of channels that we never watched, and sub-standard (at best) Internet service.

Unfortunately, living in our areas there aren’t all that many options, but The Wife did the research and found Windstream which offers Internet, home phone and cable (through DISH) for FAR less than Time Warner. On top of that they were offering a “lifetime price guarantee” which we know most likely isn’t actually that but it sounds good. To make a long story short, we’re going to save nearly $1,000 a year. Nice.

So the one thing that I requested when all of this was going down was to have my own DVR in my man cave (basement). As you can imagine, I have considerably different tastes in television and movies from the Wife and boys so I didn’t think that was too much to ask.

I came home one day and it was all taken care of. No more Time Warner boxes, brand new DISH boxes and a new home phone number. Everything seemed good until ya know… I turned it on. Low definition. Oh yeah, and I didn’t have a DVR. I was sharing the signal with the upstairs TV and I when that unit changed channels, so did mine. Not good.

After about a week or so we got it all straightened out and I’ve got glorious HD in my basement with my very own DVR. Not to mention we’re getting 3 free months of all kinds of movie channels which is super cool. Good riddance Time Warner… I can’t say that I’ll miss you.

Has ABC’s Lost Made A Tactical Error?

Chewie — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:47:46 +0000

This post contains no spoilers whatsoever on the upcoming season…

I (like countless others out there) am a HUGE fan of the ABC show Lost. There are certainly others out there who are more fanatical than I am. For example I’ll listen to a couple of podcasts about the show but I’m not one to re-watch an episode looking for stuff I’ve missed. If I missed it, I missed it. Part of the reason I love it so much is that it’s one of only a few shows that both the wife and I enjoy. That said I’m thinking that executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have made a great tactical error.

The last new episode of Lost was aired on May 13, 2009. As of this writing that makes 121 days since we’ve last seen any new content. The sixth and final season isn’t scheduled to air until February of 2010 – at least 265 days or over 8 months since we’ve last seen our heroes. The decision to wait so long was made for a variety of reasons including ensuring that there would be no gaps in the final season. They had also considered two parts to the final season but decided against that as well.

Here’s the problem as I see it.

Fans will forget – Sure it’s been dubbed as one of the best shows in history but when you don’t SEE IT you tend to forget what’s going on… especially with a plot as difficult to follow as Lost. Hell, I watch it every week and STILL have no idea what’s going on half the time.
People will get impatient – waiting this long for something in the “give it to me now” society that we live in will turn some people off. I stopped watching HBO’s Sopranos for just the same reason. Sure it was a great show but if I’ve got to wait years between seasons what’s the point? I’ll wait for video.
Expectations – With so much time between seasons, super fans out there have nothing to do but come up with what ifs. There’s simply NO WAY that the writers will be able to answer all the questions and keep everyone happy. This will only be intensified by the fact that fans had to wait so long for the conclusion of the show. I’d hate for Lost to be tarnished at all simply because of a tactical error in scheduling.

The bottom line is I can’t wait… but actually now that I think about it, I HAVE to wait.

“Sex And The City” – A Movie That Probably Shouldn’t Have Been Made

Chewie — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 02:50:32 +0000

10 Years after the show with the same name took HBO by storm, Sex And The City just had to be made… I guess. I’ll start off by saying that I was a big fan of the show. The wife and I had finally found something that we could both agree on. The writing was top notch, the acting was great and it was just edgy enough to keep people talking from week to week until a new episode aired. Unfortunately the movie missed the mark.

All of your favorites from the show are back:

Sarah Jessica Parker as writer Carrie Bradshaw
Kim Catrall as the sex crazed Samantha Jones
Kristin Davis as the prim and proper Charlotte York
Cynthia Nixon as the ever-down Miranda Hobbes

In addition we’ve got some of the great secondary characters back from the series including Chris Noth as Mr. Big, David Eigenberg as Steve Brady and Jennifer Hudson as…. huh? Jennifer Hudson? Yeah… THAT Jennifer Hudson. Not sure why but they’ve inserted this character as a main part of Carrie’s life out of fucking no where. Not only that, but by the end of the flick she’s gone again. I spose there is a reason for her to be in the movie but it could have been handled very easily by one of the other characters. I’m not saying that Hudson played the roll poorly because she didn’t. I just don’t think she needed to be there.

Carrie’s story is pretty straight forward and it just takes too damn long to develop. Samantha’s story really missed the mark in my opinion. She put the “sex” in Sex And The City and in this flick she just wasn’t having all that much. Charlotte was Charlotte – no real complaints there. Miranda… bitch. I never liked her on the show and this movie certainly didn’t do anything to change that. She complains and bitches from the beginning to the end. Fuck her.

Part of the beauty of the series was it always left you wanting more. The 30 minutes time frame was just about perfect. This movie however was not. Clocking in at nearly two and a half hours this takes up as much time as nearly 5 episodes. Too bad it wasn’t as good as 5 episodes. They could have easily cut out an hour of this flick and it would have been just fine.

From a completely chauvinistic standpoint the series was always great because there was plenty of sex and never any man parts. Not a whole lotta bush either but tits galore. This movie “upped the ante” and went the extra mile… dick. Come on, could have completely done without that. It was a quick scene but there nonetheless.

I do have to say that the movie wasn’t all bad. It was good to see those great characters back together once again. There were some really great one liners that made us laugh. If you’ve ever read my reviews before you know that I’m a big “movie ending” guy and I have to say that this one definitely delivers. I just wish it would have delivered about an hour sooner. It was recently announced that there would be a sequel to this… hopefully they learn from their mistakes. This is a great franchise that has a lot of legs left if done well.