Thursday, October 25, 2018

No Cable -- 5+ Years Later

On July 30th, 2013 I cut the cord and posted about it. So here I sit, 25 October 2018 watching Thursday Night Football on Fox, cable free for over 5 years!

I was just talking to my daughter-in-law about it, which prompted me to write this post. I honestly don't miss cable and if anything, streaming shows have gotten better over time. I have almost no desire to watch any weekly series that's on TV right now, with Manifest being the lone exception. Even then, I usually stream it off NBC's website when I want instead of watching it when it's broadcast on TV. In contrast, I look forward to many new series that are being streamed. The 1st seasons of Dare Devil and Jessica Jones were great. The 2nd season of DD was good, but I didn't like Season 2 of JJ. Looking forward to finding time to catch season 3 of DD which was just released. I liked Luke Cage, but it doesn't compare to DD and JJ. I thought season 1 of Iron Fist was terrible. Season 2 of each was better, but I heard that Marvel is cancelling both. Not as well known was Cloak and Dagger, which I was surprised that I really liked it. I hope they make a season 2. I thought that Jack Ryan lived up to the hype. Season 2 is all but guaranteed.

As a car-guy I thought I would really miss the Discovery Channel where all the good car shows seemed to be. But the streaming shows have been even better.  Clarkson, Hammond, and May left Top Gear to create their own car show, The Grand Tour, which is currently filming season 3. Some have criticized it, saying it's not as good as TG, but for me TG was as much about the trio as it was about the cars. If you're looking for old school, Hot Rod Unlimited is for you. It's a rerun of the TV episodes made by Hot Rob Magazine. Want to see stuff on new cars, try Ignition. Created by Motortrend to introduce you to the newest vehicles on the market. Apex was an amazing documentary on SuperCars.  Normally I couldn't car less about cars I'll never by able to afford, but this was so well done. Fastest Car was also a great documentary pitting garage built cars vs. SuperCars in a drag race. The stories about the owners were as entertaining, if not more so, then the cars themselves. For pure hilarious entertainment try Drunk History (and you may learn something too). It's crazy how many well know actors have played parts for this series.

There's also some great stuff to stream from YouTube (my Samsung TV has a YouTube app built in). For auto related, I love Donut Media, especially the "Everything you need to know..." series.
Host James Pumphrey's delivery is hilarious. Also your favorite team probably has a series. The Chargers have posted 4 episodes of Backstage:Chargers this season, along with highlights for every game. I also love HiSessions, which showcases musical artists from Hawaii.

Sports is still the downside. All those games on TNT and TBS (mostly basketball and baseball) that I can't watch anymore. Monday Night Football is still on ESPN. I will say there is a way to watch those games if you really want to...I will also say that those sites are probably not legally doing it. Because of that I won't post any links here, but it really isn't hard to find. Video quality isn't great and sometimes the stream can be erratic. It's up to you if you think it's worth it or not.

In the end, MNF and some random NBA/MLB games isn't enough for me to miss Cable. I'm perfectly happy with my viewing options and have no regrets.

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