Cable again

I have cable TV again.

That's something I never expected.

You see, I'm a huge advocate of cutting the cord. I'm generally not a fan of cable TV. Or satellite TV. Since January 2011, I've been watching TV mostly by streaming content. But, suddenly, I now have cable TV service.

Let's get some stuff out of the way first. I'm paying for Internet and TV (by whatever means) at two locations. At one location, I dropped cable in January 2011 when, after crunching all the numbers, I determined that I'd save $65/month by dropping cable and moving to streaming. Now, that $780/year ($65/month x 12) was not full savings. I had to buy a Roku. And a TV antenna. And I had to buy a few TV episodes that weren't available by other means. Still, I had a large net savings for the year. So, I was happy.

New offerings came available. Hulu expanded. Amazon Prime streaming expanded. Netflix expanded. Services like Sling TV came along. All that just reinforced by decision to drop cable. Everything was great.

Later, I began paying for Internet and TV (by whatever means) at another location. That location was serviced by an entirely different cable and Internet provider.

At the second location, I found that I could get a decent broadband Internet connection plus local channels cheaper than Internet service alone. Yeah, I didn't believe it at first, but sure enough, that was the case. Which meant I didn't have to shell out anything for an antenna. I'd get Internet service cheaper, and could watch local channels (which is all I would have picked up from the antenna anyway), and it wasn't a bad price.

Every 6 to 12 months, I'd have to take my happy butt down to one or the other of the cable offices -- I get better results in person because of my charming personality -- and renegotiate a price. After my experience with the second provider, I learned to check for packages that aren't advertised. And, that continued along for a bit. Well, it continued until late September.

In late August or early September, I'd add Sling TV with the Sports Add-on so I could watch college football. After the season, I'd drop Sling TV. Sometimes, I'd use DirecTV Now or one of the other streaming services if they had a great deal on a package or offered a free streaming device. I ended up with several Apple TV devices or Roku devices by doing that. Still got a Roku in the box, never opened.

Recently, one of the locations had gone up, meaning the 12-month "special" had expired. So, I marched myself down to the cable office and started negotiations. This time, when asking about the cost of services, I found out that I could get Internet and a basic cable package -- not a locals only/lifeline package, but one with ESPN and other cable channels -- for a decent price.

I calculated the cost of Internet plus Sling TV with Sports Add-on against the cost of Internet and Basic Cable. And, what do you know? The Basic Cable package was cheaper.

Now, before I ran to sign up for that, I checked into a few other things, such as how well authentication against apps on Apple TV or Roku -- I didn't bother with Amazon Fire TV or Android TV, since Apple TV and Roku are over 95% of my watching -- and found out that they'd work. The local cable company even supports that single sign-on for many apps on Apple TV.

My streaming service that included ESPN was going to renew today, but last week, I got the cable service going, and now I've dropped my streaming service in favor of cable TV. Which surprised me.

If you had told me that I'd be going back to cable, I'd've told you that you were crazy. You still might be crazy, but telling me I'm going back to cable has no bearing on that assessment. Because here I am. A cable user.

I feel so dirty. But I'm saving money.

Took 'em nearly eight years to get the message.

Normal. Or what passes for it around here.

After several days, the situation at the house has improved.

We're now to the point where there's just a hole in the roof.

And, yes, that's an improvement.

The tree is still down in the back yard. Or what's left of the tree after getting it cut up to get it off the roof.

The phone line is still down. Oh, the phone works. Mostly. Touch tone doesn't work, for instance. Pulse dialing does, as do incoming calls.

And the DSL works. Mostly. Download speed is supposed to be 6 Mbps. It's 3.5 Mbps, which is on the low end of what passes for acceptable. Normal for here is between 5 and 6 Mbps.

But, like I said, the phone line is down. On the ground. It runs from the house, across the yard, to the road, across the road on the asphalt, and to the pole on the other side of the road. We still have Internet access, though. For now.

The cable is still down. Oh, we are picking up the channels on the TV and TiVo. But the cable is down. It runs from the side of the house, across the ground, until about half-way to the road, where it droops from the other lines running across the yard.

But, we have power.

The electrician got the box on the wall yesterday. And the building inspector signed off on the work today. The power company reconnected the house and got power back to us late this afternoon.

Still waiting on the insurance company to send someone by. But the delay isn't entirely their fault. So, I'm trying to be patient.

Hope to hear from them soon. The cable folks said they'd have a man by Thursday to fix the cable. The phone company said they'd have the line fixed by Monday upcoming. And, yes, they know the line is laying on the road.

So, the good news is that 5 days after the storm, there's a hole in the roof, we haven't heard from the insurance company, the phone line is laying on the road, and the cable is down.

Yes, that's the good news.

That sums up what kind of week it's been.