Tuesday, July 26, 2011

My satellite receiver died

Of all times for my satellite receiver to die -- during baseball season! Aaaargh. But what can you do? Directv tells me a replacement is on the way but it's coming snail-mail. Sigh.

So last night, my first night without TV, I looked at internet options to fill the gap. First off, I learned that MLB killed every other site that offered baseball games, even radio transmissions. Used to be, you could hear a game on your computer. MLB did away with that. Thanks, MLB!

The only way to watch games online is to buy into MLB's service. But see, there's a hitch. MLB does everything wrong. It's a shlock outfit, top to bottom. So no, I won't put MLB software on my computer so I can watch games. If I was on a PC, I might try this. After all, a PC is a piece of garbage so it doesn't matter. But I'm on a Mac that works perfectly. There's no way I would ever put their software on my computer. End of story. Thanks, MLB.

Moving right along, one thing I learned is that you can watch the CBS Evening News "with Scott Paley" (who hasn't been seen since his first week hosting the show, several weeks ago, by the way. They've had subs doing it since then). You can watch that news show here. (Scoot down to "Watch full episodes of the CBS Evening News".) You can't watch the show live but later in the evening they put the video of the show up -- without commercials! At least that aspect of it is good. But that's the only thing I found online.

This doesn't seem right. The internet should offer alternatives to TV, no? I thought I'd find all sorts of ways to watch stuff live. Nope. So I'm stuck and I've got who knows how many more days until that set-top box arrives.

Then again, my new DVR will be blank and that presents an opportunity. I plan to fill all 100 hours of it with baseball games, to tide me over when winter arrives. I figure I can keep more than ten full games on it. So they'll be repeats; who cares? It's baseball. I'll watch them over and over (because I have no other options; MLB, I'm looking right at you when I say that).